Related papers: Computational Approaches for Stochastic Shortest P…

With the pervasiveness of Stochastic Shortest-Path (SSP) problems in high-risk industries, such as last-mile autonomous delivery and supply chain management, robust planning algorithms are crucial for ensuring successful task completion…

Robust Markov decision processes (MDPs) are used for applications of dynamic optimization in uncertain environments and have been studied extensively. Many of the main properties and algorithms of MDPs, such as value iteration and policy…

We investigate the problem of best-policy identification in discounted Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) when the learner has access to a generative model. The objective is to devise a learning algorithm returning the best policy as early as…

We study a Q learning algorithm for continuous time stochastic control problems. The proposed algorithm uses the sampled state process by discretizing the state and control action spaces under piece-wise constant control processes. We show…

In the decremental single-source shortest paths (SSSP) problem, the input is an undirected graph $G=(V,E)$ with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges undergoing edge deletions, together with a fixed source vertex $s\in V$. The goal is to maintain a…

Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are a popular class of models suitable for solving control decision problems in probabilistic reactive systems. We consider parametric MDPs (pMDPs) that include parameters in some of the transition…

We consider a class of two-player zero-sum stochastic games with finite state and compact control spaces, which we call stochastic shortest path (SSP) games. They are undiscounted total cost stochastic dynamic games that have a cost-free…

Autonomous marine vehicles play an essential role in many ocean science and engineering applications. Planning time and energy optimal paths for these vehicles to navigate in stochastic dynamic ocean environments is essential to reduce…

We consider the problem of approximating the reachability probabilities in Markov decision processes (MDP) with uncountable (continuous) state and action spaces. While there are algorithms that, for special classes of such MDP, provide a…

In this paper we address the class of Sequential Decision Making (SDM) problems that are characterized by time-varying parameters. These parameter dynamics are either pre-specified or manipulable. At any given time instant the decision…

It is well known that for any finite state Markov decision process (MDP) there is a memoryless deterministic policy that maximizes the expected reward. For partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs), optimal memoryless policies…

Recent research in decision theoretic planning has focussed on making the solution of Markov decision processes (MDPs) more feasible. We develop a family of algorithms for structured reachability analysis of MDPs that are suitable when an…

We introduce stochastic decision Petri nets (SDPNs), which are a form of stochastic Petri nets equipped with rewards and a control mechanism via the deactivation of controllable transitions. Such nets can be translated into Markov decision…

This note describes sufficient conditions under which total-cost and average-cost Markov decision processes (MDPs) with general state and action spaces, and with weakly continuous transition probabilities, can be reduced to discounted MDPs.…

We consider semidefinite programs (SDPs) of size n with equality constraints. In order to overcome scalability issues, Burer and Monteiro proposed a factorized approach based on optimizing over a matrix Y of size $n$ by $k$ such that $X =…

In this paper, we study the numerical method for stochastic optimal control problems (SOCPs). By reducing the optimal control problem to the discrete case, we derive a discrete stochastic maximum principle (SMP). With the help of this SMP,…

Semidefinite programs (SDP) are important in learning and combinatorial optimization with numerous applications. In pursuit of low-rank solutions and low complexity algorithms, we consider the Burer--Monteiro factorization approach for…

This paper studies a finite-horizon Markov decision problem with information-theoretic constraints, where the goal is to minimize directed information from the controlled source process to the control process, subject to stage-wise cost…

Computing optimal conditional reachability probabilities in Markov decision processes (MDPs) is tractable by a reduction to reachability probabilities. Yet, this reduction yields cyclic, challenging MDPs that are often notoriously hard to…

In this paper we consider shortest path problems in a directed graph where the transitions between nodes are subject to uncertainty. We use a minimax formulation, where the objective is to guarantee that a special destination state is…